Copyright in Malta

The mentality of nowadays youngsters is to simply use the web and copy any information which is appealing enough to them. The degree of reliability and the quality of the concerned information are put aside. Moreover, the issue of copyright is ignored and not addressed adequately. I recall my own schooling days where no one made me aware of the importance to credit other author's work. Little did I know that when I made use of an image without the author's acknowledgment, I was infringing the copyright law.

I noticed that there is a certain trend in youngsters to download and copy music, software or games without paying. This is also a type of illegal activity. Unfortunately, this issue in Malta is not being taken seriously to the extend that youngsters have now adopted the idea of making use of any information found on the web without asking for permission to the rightful owner. It is very interesting to mention that in Germany, anybody who downloads films for commercial use could be jailed for up to five years. The copyright issue seems to be an ongoing battle for Google in Germany. Germans have a number of cases suing Google for not preventing illegal content from being uploaded to certain sites like You Tube.

In contrast to this, the Prime Minister David Cameron is of the opinion that copyright laws should be adjusted so as to cater for the new era of the internet. Cameron states that the United States make use of a ‘fair use’ which "…some people believe gives companies more breathing space to create new products and services”. Thus the UK prime minister decided to keep the costs of obtaining permission from rights holders to a minimum.

Back to Malta and the current situation in schools, I think that more awareness is needed on this issue of copyright infringes. It would be ideal to maybe organize a seminar where the students are given the chance to discuss copyright in general and how does it effect e-learning. We should make sure that students are aware that it is the expression on one's idea which is copyrighted and not the idea in itself. It could also be interesting if during such seminar, students will have the chance to make use of a Web 3.0 personalized learning environment. One can then explain to them that in order to achieve such PLE, resources have to be shared. Sharing an educational resource is not copying, on the other hand if one respects the author and make good use of the resource, then the benefits of PLE are being achieved.

I personally believe that this issue is still not being emphasized enough in Malta especially in the primary and secondary schooling years. I agree a lot with one of my colleagues Sarah in her blog “E-learning vs. Copyright and IPR ” that indeed it is up to us as future teachers to make sure that we start making our students aware of this issue as from a tender age.

References:

Lawton, C. (2010, September 7). German court rules against Google in copyright case. The Wall Street Journal, Technology news and insights. Accessed from http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/07/german-court-rules-against-google-in-copyright-case/

Boyes, R. (2006, March 24). Two years in prison for downloading latest film. The Times. Accessed from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article694986.ece

BBC News. (2010, November 4). UK copyright laws to be reviewed, announces Cameron. Accessed from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11695416